Saturday, December 17, 2011

The myth of UFOs

Some North Americans believed, and may be believing even now, in flying saucers. A few percentage of them thought that extra terrestrial beings are on a war-path with us here on the Earth. As we all know extra terrestrial life is still not fully explored. It is the other day that an earth like planet, Kepler22b, was discovered about 600 million light years away! No life has been traced anywhere else so far. Light travels at 300,000 kilometres a second and it is impossible for any being out there to reach us here even in 4.25 light years(4.2x365x24x60x60 kilometers), about the distance of the nearest star, Proxima Centauri to us, leave alone 600 million light years! How did then the belief in flying saucers arise and get deep rooted?

It is all very simple. How do people believe in a particular religion, however unreasonable it is? Parents and early childhood environment condition our minds to believe. Otherwise, how can a vast majority of the children born to Islam believe in it, those born to Christians believe in Christianity or still others born to atheists believe in atheism? It may not be the truth or falsehood of the faith but the programming kids get from infancy. The brain is very fertile and any seed sown in there will germinate and grow to maturity.

How do you think people adhere to communism which has proven, beyond any doubt, that it will retard human progress and make people's lives more miserable? How do you think people believe in the Bible postulate that we are sinners due to a simple disobedience of the first people who lived more than 4000 years back? It is simply a belief and beliefs defy logic. Chaste Buddhism is atheistic; there are millions who believe in it and they are not called atheists or condemned for that. It is all a matter of the popular perception.

Truth has no meaning or significance in this context.

Now coming to the American belief, it all started with the Nazis sending flat planes to attack their enemies. many of them were drowned. In 1959 a convoy of military trucks carrying a real life flying saucer was transferred by the Canadians to the Americans in secrecy. The skies over the United States were swarming with unidentified flying objects during the early 1950s. US military leaders were skeptical that the blobs of light were piloted by moon-men or Martians. There was a possibility that the blob-occupants were Russian-speaking. There had long been credible rumors, as mentioned before, of secret Nazi “flying disk” attack planes developed in the final months of the Third Reich and it could be possible that the Russians had copied the technology.

The United States started flying saucer technology in 1953 and a flat, wedge-shaped theoretical aircraft intended to lift off vertically like a helicopter with the speed, agility, and high-altitude capabilities of a jet fighter was being tested. A rudimentary version of Frost’s ( a pioneer in the technology) flying saucer slowly materialized over the following months. In 1958 Frost approached his military investors with a revised concept. This new layout was more compact, eighteen feet in diameter, less complex with three jet engines. Frost calculated that his team’s prototype would be capable of reaching 250 miles per hour, 10,000 feet in altitude, and 130 miles in range. The Special Projects Group packed it to NASA for testing. The test failed and frost started new experiments. But the whole thing was abandoned later by the American government. Enough hype was already created that the American mothers started talking about flying saucers for a long time to come. Today more Americans believe in flying objects than any other nationality. It is only a belief and we believe something because it has no rational foundation.

While a small percentage of UFO remain unexplained (there are a number reasons for the same), the majority are later identified as various natural phenomenon or man-made objects. UFO has generally become synonymous with alien spacecraft! See how far human imagination can carry things to! Americans, like others in the world, has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted us in any manner. UFO observations are misidentified conventional objects or natural phenomenon like common aircraft, balloons, certain clouds, meteors or bright planets. a small percentage even being hoaxes. The world scientific community does not feel it deserves a further investigation at all. Look, how far can certain believes take us to!